Man exonerated after 36 years in prison sues Ventura County DA, sheriff’s offices

Michael Hanline, who spent 36 years behind bars for a murder conviction dismissed last spring, has filed a federal lawsuit against Ventura County, the district attorney's office and the sheriff's office.

The case, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles earlier this month, seeks unspecified damages. His incarceration is believed to be the longest in California for someone wrongfully convicted, according to groups that track exonerations.

In 1980, a jury convicted Hanline of first-degree murder for the 1978 slaying of Ventura resident J.T. McGarry, also known as Michael Mathers.

Hanline's case was taken up by the California Innocence Project in 1999. The group stopped in Ventura County in 2013, when members walked from San Diego to Sacramento on behalf of Hanline and 11 others they believed had been wrongly convicted.

The Ventura County DA's Conviction Integrity Unit, which launched in October 2012, reviewed the case. Based on DNA and other evidence, prosecutors recommended vacating the conviction in November 2014, when Hanline was released, and eventually moved to dismiss all charges last April.

District Attorney Greg Totten's office, however, did not declare Hanline "factually innocent," which would have allowed him to apply for reimbursement of $100 a day for his time behind bars, or more than $1 million.

Special Assistant District Attorney Michael Schwartz, who heads the conviction integrity unit, declined to comment on the litigation.

Hanline's attorney for the lawsuit, Jan Stiglitz, also declined to comment.

Stiglitz is a co-founder of the California Innocence Project, a clinical program at the California Western School of Law in San Diego, but said he is now on emeritus status with the program and is representing Hanline as a private client.

"Should there be a recovery, I have pledged that part of my fee will be donated to the CIP," Stiglitz said in an email.